Is my sacrifice acceptable?

 

Many times we are upset and angry with God for not accepting our sacrifice! Our thoughts are always self centered - self justification of the task we have "sacrificed" for God's sake. The tireless effort, the sleepless nights, the fleshly endeavor for perfection and the list go on and on....

It is interesting how God dealt with one such person. His name was Cain, if fact we all can easily relate to him and most of us will have pity for him too. Probably we would championed his cause against God's action. He worked hard on the land and toiled on that which God had cursed. As Abel did, he too desired to offer to God a sacrifice.

Most of the initial historical encounters with God would have been passed on by word of mouth by Adam and Eve. Both Cain and Abel would have been told the story of how God had clothed their parents with the sacrifice of His own creation. This offering denotes God's preference which Abel discerned. Abel's sacrifice included death of the firstlings of the flock and of their fat portion!

In the New Testament we see in Hebrew 11 that Abel acted in faith in obedient response to what he had discerned of God's Word or His nature. Cain on the other hand didn't discern and became angry with God for not accepting his offering. The warning by God that, "sin is crouching at the door and its desire is for you, but you must master it", was not heeded to by Cain.

This led to hate and eventually murder, the first man to be killed by another in God's creation. Our Lord Jesus Christ too was killed but He chose to lay down His life for mankind. We are called to discern and be like Christ, to love others and to lay down our lives for them.

The test of Godly sacrifice is when I can say to my brother I will lay my life down for you. This does not mean words only but action like what Jesus did!

Jesus is the reason for every season!

 

"A worldview is a way of viewing or interpreting all reality. It is an interpretative framework through which or by which one makes sense of the data of life and the world," (Norman Geisler and William Watkins). True science is not contradictory to what God has said in Scripture and therefore knowing the Truth will set those who believe it and live by it, free!

If we failed to believe Genesis Chapter 1 and 2, we would have to throw the whole Bible away as the rest of the Bible without it, will not make sense! If we believe that Holiness and Sin does not mix we can start to believe the deeper Truths of God's Word. In fact, even Jesus Christ cried out,"Why have You forsaken Me?", when Father God had to turn away from Him! This was done because all the sins of the world was placed on Jesus to redeem mankind and a holy Father God will not tolerate sin! This reminds me of the picture of the serpent on the cross which Moses lifted up in the wilderness!

We must believe nothing is too difficult for the Lord (Jer 32 - Lord God made heaven and earth by great power and outstretched arm) and we should see to it that no one takes us captive with worldviews (Col 2 - philosophy, empty deception, tradition of men and principles of the world).

Jesus is the reason for all of our existence so let us glorify His name!

The voice of your brother's blood is crying to Me.....

 

God's command for mankind is founded on these 2 questions, "Where are you? and Where is Abel your brother?" The answers, whether a "blame shifting" response or an "blatant outright lie", are very common today! But God's Truth continue to echo back to us throughout the ages and that Truth is in His Greatest Commandment.

In Mark 12:28-31 we note, "One of the religion scholars came up. Hearing the lively exchanges of question and answer and seeing how sharp Jesus was in his answers, he put in his question: "Which is most important of all the commandments?" Jesus said, "The first in importance is, 'Listen, Israel: The Lord your God is one; so love the Lord God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence and energy.' And here is the second: 'Love others as well as you love yourself.' There is no other commandment that ranks with these."

Abel discerned God's desire for an acceptable sacrifice but Cain didn't and that led to anger, jealousy and eventually murder. Today our total being is to be presented to God as a reasonable act of service on our part! It doesn't stop there but it extends to our love for "others". This all inclusive "others" range from our spouse to our enemies!

Our failure to be our brother's keeper has caused many to stray and some to even fall away! Is there a voice crying out to God's for our failure to speak up???

Who told you that you were naked?

 

...the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. There is a pathway to choose in life and God provides the way of escape when we are tempted more than we can bear!

The importance of our dependence on God for our marriage is clearly alluded in verse 24 and 25 of Chapter 2, "For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed."

In Chapter 3 we see the bait that was thrown at mankind by the serpent - satan himself. The Message Bible quoted Luke 6:43-45 thus, ""You don't get wormy apples off a healthy tree, nor good apples off a diseased tree. The health of the apple tells the health of the tree. You must begin with your own life-giving lives. It's who you are, not what you say and do, that counts. Your true being brims over into true words and deeds."

All of our lust is within us and we should resist it and flee from temptation. In this account we see Eve beguiled and Adam willfully disobedient to the command God gave him. God commanded the man, saying, "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die."

Isn't it the same with us, having known God's specific command we still go ahead and willfully commit the wrong! Sin "removed" God's covering and brought about shame and spiritual death. The next thing that mankind chose to do was to repair the damage and fix it in his own strength. How? Using fig leaves without any atoning virtue to cover their shame and guilt. Then the most devastating unimaginable act took place - man hid from a loving God!

As always, the Grace of God calls out to us, "Where are you?" Those who go back to Him have a chance of repenting of our sin and then God atoning it. God had to kill for the first time, one of His creation and cloth Adam and Eve. This is another act pointing to our Lord Jesus Christ who will be sacrificed on the tree for us!

Thank you Lord Jesus Christ for covering my sins, shame and nakedness with Your atoning blood which washes away all my sins and brings me back into a right standing with You, again and again!

The history of.....

The history of.....
Originally uploaded by chandrangopalan

The verse, in Gen 2:4 is the "history of .... or generation of .... or account of heaven and the earth", when cross referenced with Gen 5:1, Gen 6:9 and Gen 10:1 helps clarify this sentence, as it appears here in the Bible. God is in a sense reviewing the account as was stated in Chapter 1. When we superimpose this understanding from the cross reference, to this verse, it becomes clearer.

If these are the generations which were recorded, we could come to a conclusion then that all of us can trace our ancestry back to the beginning or close to the beginning! Some of the oldest well documented historical account of civilization, had their symbols representing the written "character or alphabet", found in their language, showing the account of Genesis from the very beginning. In fact the Chinese civilization is one that I am aware of that clearly shows this evidence. I shared this in a Chinese New Year message two years ago!

God having made, formed and created mankind in His Own Image and Likeness and then provided his a helper suitable for him. All of our marriages are designed that way by God, our helpmate is one that is complimentary to ourselves, usually making us whole and complete.

Man was formed from the dust of the ground and it is not surprising that we will return to dust when we die. God Spirit was breathed into man's nostrils so he became a living being or soul. The woman was created from part of man's side or his rib and built up by God to be woman. And it is no wonder that Adam when awoke was awed and thrilled that he called her "wo!..man"!

"The history of ...." sentence cannot have happened, if they then didn't become one flesh in their need to reproduce and multiply, as commanded by God. This is a command which God gave to be executed within the context of marriage and not outside this Covenant divine relationship of God. In fact, God wants marriage to last till death do man and woman apart!

Did Adam and Eve have the attitude of the Bereans?

Did Adam and Eve have the attitude of the Bereans?
Originally uploaded by chandrangopalan

The Bereans according to Acts 17:11 received the message with great eagerness and examined Scriptures everyday to see if what Paul said was true!

A Great God is not afraid to provide us the option of freewill choice. Instead of making us like robots, He made and created mankind to reason and come to a conclusion as to the Way to go. God provided Adam and Eve the ability to discern, which requires more than the 5 natural senses in which we operate in usually. The Truth of God's Word is to be examined to know His Complete Loving nature.

The devil's ploys has not changed from that day in the Garden when he started by throwing doubts into the minds of mankind, such that it draws out our lust and questions the character of our Loving God. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye and the pride of life categorizes mankind's weakness. When we don't discern this thought we will fall!

After making all kinds of trees grow out of the ground - trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food, in the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The Lord God than commanded man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."

The tree of life leading to life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil leading to death was there for Adam and Eve to choose from. God brought all the beasts of the field and the birds of the air to Adam for him to name them. Whatever man called each living creature, that was its name! Adam had such an important role in God's scheme of things in His Kingdom.

Having this vital role and a helpmate, all Adam had to do was to enjoy God's full blessings of being fruitful and to increase in number, to fill the earth and to subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground. Both animals and man were herbivorous in God's creation as He had provided for them. He is our Provider!

But our lust will lead us to doubt God and have a desire to be like "god" knowing good and evil instead of depending on His complete guidance, which we can discern in the Spirit. This dependence on intellect alone, to be a "god", is what causes destruction to follow!

The Bereans discerned otherwise and they examined Scripture daily to stay from being derailed of their faith in the True Living God!

Creation ordered from chaos

Creation ordered from chaos
Originally uploaded by chandrangopalan

In verse 2 of Genesis the Spirit was hovering and brooding like a mother hen over her chicks. From that point on all disorder was ordered into order, in its rightful place and sequence!

There was the process of separation of the various elements - earthly and heavenly. So vast is God's creation that He equated the stars in the sky to the sand on the seashore to the patriarch Abraham. Can we image that? That is why He is God and we are not!

God spoke His Word and everything fell into place, in its proper order. God in whom there is no shadow of turning, in His glory spoke forth light into being. Therein we see, evening and morning and day one.

In the different translations of the Bible we see all of the English language trying to capture the full meaning of the Hebrew text as it was originally written in. We observe how the expanse or firmament, the sky which is heaven separating both waters. Which was day 2 and then the separation of the land which is earth from the waters which is seas. These seas didnt have the names like we have today and there is still no borders in the water other than those made by men.

As God continues this order of creation He saw that it was good. Therefore if we read the first letter from Paul to Timothy in Chapter 4 verse 4 and it state thus, "For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the Word of God and prayer.

Praise God for His Creation in whatever state it is in now. He will make it good in the end!